This blog is my public diary of experiences that I've had as I become increasingly involved in the area of Kensington, Pa. I am including experiences that I am having as I sit down, one on one, with addicted and homeless people.

Please Know...

As I come to know the men and women of Kensington, specifically the homeless and addicted, their stories become increasingly sensitive and personal. Their collective story is what I am trying to share with you as my way of breaking the stereotypical beliefs that exist in regard to these fine people. Names are rarely their actual names and wherever I can do so, I might use the opposite pronoun (his/her, etc.) just to help increase their privacy.

I had a conversation this morning with two women who have been living on the streets in the City of Brotherly Love. They explained to me that women are routinely released from the local women's prison in the middle of the night and are not given their ID or their money or their cell phone back and must come back another day to receive these items.

When they leave the grounds of the Philadelphia women's prison there is typically a line of men in cars looking to pick them up for "dates". Some of these women, because they desperately need money and have not been given their money back by the prison from which they were just released, will involve themselves in that date for money.

According to these women, it's not unusual to have some these men be undercover policeman waiting to arrest these women for prostitution. They end up being arrested and put back in jail for that crime.

Dear Philadelphia prison system,

Please stop releasing your Daughters of the City of the American Revolution in the middle of the night. Also, please give them their ID and cell phone, money and all possessions that they came in with back to them immediately upon their discharge from your facilities. Do not make it a requirement that they come back another day.

Thank you.

PS... Dear readers of this blog, if you are reading this on Facebook and if this bothers you in any way and you feel something should be done, please don't just like it or put an angry face or something to that effect. Please share this on your Facebook page for your friends and public to see so that perhaps the right people will see this and changes will be made that will benefit the daughters of Philadelphia.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

I was recently asked if safe injection sites promote heroin use. Expanding the question a bit…

Does providing food, water and clothing, fresh needles and showers at local agencies promote heroin use?

After this year of hearing the stories that I’ve heard directly from the people living in their addiction, I’ve come to this conclusion:

Nothing promotes heroin use more than the lack of a system in place to fully and humanely deal with this current pandemic!

No one decides to become addicted.

No one wants to stay addicted.

For those of us on the outside looking in on this issue, that is to say, for those of us who have never personally dealt with addiction within our own being, there is a mystery that we simply cannot fully understand. The strength of a drug addiction is outrageously powerful.

Perhaps these two illustrations will help us understand:

1. In a conversation with one man, a long time resident of Emerald City, I asked him if what I've heard is true about the sense of having a demon inside of them in their addiction. "Absolutely! This demon makes me do things that I would never otherwise do to support my habit that I would never otherwise have. I am not the person who does these things. The demon is doing them and I feel powerless to stop it."[1]

2. I introduced myself to a new resident of Emerald City, a woman in her 20s. I mentioned my church affiliation. She promptly shared with me her deep love for our LORD. With a sparkle in her eyes, she explained that as a devout Roman Catholic, she tries to attend Mass every day and loves it as her expression of her love for her LORD.

She paused.

The sparkles in her eyes started to run down her cheeks as tears. She looked at me and said, "I'm sorry. I have to leave now. It's time for me to go humiliate myself." She wiped away her melted sparkles, turned and left for her evening of “dates.”

If those of us on the outside of addiction looking in can just accept the fact that there is a mystery there that we cannot and will never fully understand, then there is a chance that we can more readily accept the addicted person as being fully human and worthy of dignity, honor, respect, and love.

[1] There are many ways to interpret what the ‘demon’ is. Some will say that it is Satan. Others will say that the drug is the ‘demon.’ However you may interpret this, suffice it to say that it is a power seemingly beyond one’s self.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Communities such as Emerald City have become, by default, safe injection sites. Do they meet the official criteria of a safe injection site? Probably not. But they are, none the less. Of the three overdoses requiring Narcan that I have witnessed in Emerald City, all were saved by other homeless addicted people who live there and carry Narcan.[1] They look out for each other in this regard.

In the case of Emerald City, The City of Brotherly Love visits with police and sanitation workers to "clean out" the community once each week, currently on Friday mornings. The 40 to 60 residents MUST pack up all of their belongings and haul them up the street one block before the officer in charge decides that time is up. The sanitation workers then gather anything that was left behind and crushes it in their trash trucks. This includes perfectly good personal belongings of these men and women. If any man or woman happens to not be there at this time, the likelihood that they will lose ALL of their possessions is very high.

Scattering the residents of these communities by systematically removing them from their community living area leads some of them to living in solitude in abandoned buildings. And that just makes sense. Think about it. If I am required by Philadelphia to move all of my possessions one block up the street each week, why shouldn't I move into an abandoned building and set up my own home where I won't have to move? These men and women move in and will continue to use their drugs (their 'medicine' as they call it[2]). They will run the much higher risk of overdosing where no one else will see them doing so. The end result is one more dead daughter or son, sister or brother, mother or father, niece or nephew.

When these human communities of high school drop outs[3], college graduates with their bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees and skilled labor have no funds for housing, they do what they can to create protection from the elements. The result is blanket and sheet, cardboard and plywood homes on sidewalks. If the sight of these homes for our sons and daughters in the City of the American Revolution bothers you, don't call city hall and complain. Visit them. Knock on their front sheet. Sit with them. Invite them to tell you their story and tell them you care.

[1] All three were within two weeks just recently. The first two were in a ten minute period and these two men were saved by one woman, a resident of Emerald City. She knew what to do and I, with my (former) EMT training and 20 years of hospital work assisted her. I was in awe of her knowledge and skill as she did what she knew needed to be done to save these men. Two families have this woman to thank for not losing their son and/or father that day. The third overdose was a woman who relapsed after being drug free for four months. She thanked me yesterday for saving her life a couple weeks ago. I clarified with her that I only monitored her pulse and respirations while a woman in the community did the saving. Ever since this day, whenever I see this latter woman, I give her a hug and say "Good morning/afternoon Life Saver!" She smiles and says "Thank you."

Sunday, December 3, 2017

In my visits to Emerald City, I’ve been accepted by many men and women and ignored by some. There is one woman, "Sally", who told me early on that I was annoying. I chose to love her in the name of Jesus and respect all boundaries that she seemed to prefer. She has slowly warmed up to me. Today, she gave me a hug, looked at me and said: “Chris, I am so broken.”

“Tell me how to respond LORD.” I prayed.

“Sally, in Japan, when a valuable piece of china breaks, it is repaired by piecing the broken parts back together with gold. The end result is that the piece of fine china is even more beautiful than it was before it broke. You are that fine piece of china and God wants to put your broken parts back together with pure gold if you will let Him.”

Last night I saw the woman who helped save another woman who was overdosing on Tuesday night. I congratulated her for doing such a good job and saving the other woman's life. She thanked me and shrugged her shoulders and said: "I've had two more since then."

That's my definition of a hero, someone who casually does the extremely good thing and shrugs it off as the routine stuff of life.

A couple of minutes after this conversation, I saw this same woman injecting heroin into her own arm and beginning to slump. I went over to her and spoke to her and with her approval held her hands and we talked and prayed. When I was done praying I thought that we were done praying. Although still in her slump, she looked at me and she said: "We're not done praying. I have to pray." The power of the Holy Spirit came over her and pulled her out of her drug-induced slump as she prayed a glorious prayer for her own healing and the healing of everyone in the Emerald City. She concluded this prayer with the words "in Jesus Name" and she blessed herself as a good Roman Catholic would do. She thanked me for the opportunity to pray. And with that, she slumped back into her drug-induced stupor. I stayed with her long enough to make sure that she was not seriously overdosing.

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